Local Inquiries
| Date | 01 January 1928 |
| Author | E. H. Rhodes |
| Published date | 01 January 1928 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1928.tb02323.x |
Local
Inquiries
By
E.
H.
RHODES
[Pa+e7 read before
the
Institule
0)’
Public Administration at ShefiLa?,
13th
January,
19281
LOCAL
inquiry-at any rate in the sense in which
I
shall use the
A
term
in
this
Paper-is an inquiry held in the locality where the
subject-matter arises by
a
person who acts on behalf
of,
and reports to,
a
central authority.
It
presupposes that the central authority has
a
decision to make,
and
that
this
turns-at any rate in part-upon the local circumstances.
The local inquiry
is
to ascertain the local facts
;
and its merit is that it
is the best way of doing this.
The history
of
these inquiries in England and Wales in matters relating
to Local Government dates from the legislation
of
the
1830’s
and the
1840’s.
That they did not exist before
is
not due,
I
think, to deficiencies
in the means
of
communication.
It
was due
to
the fact that the central
government
did
not take any interest-at any rate any systematized
interest-in local administration. Parliament did. Local authorities]
or persons desirous
of
creating local authorities, had the right, like every
one else, of going to Parliament and asking them to make special laws to
give powers and remedy mischiefs which the general law was unable to
give or remedy. Parliament was kept busy in the eighteenth
and
the
earlier part
of
the nineteenth century making local Acts for the better
govemment of
growing
towns-for their paving, cleansing, watching,
acd the like.
And
the same was the case with the
Poor
Law.
Now, one of the effects of the general legislation
of
the
1830’s
and the
1840’s
was
to
relieve Parliament
of
much
of
the
growing
burden
of
local
legislation. Local Acts remained numerous,
and are numerous to-day, though not
so
numerous
as
they were in the
heyday
of
railway development
or
even
as
they were thirty years
ago.
But
it
relieved the pressure
;
and
it
did
so by transferring to Government
Departments functions which
would
otherwise have lain upon Parliament.
It
is
in the exercise
of
these functions that the system of local
inquiries
has
grown
up, and
it
is
of interest therefore to turn to the
general Acts of the time and to the Reports of the
Royal
Commissions
which preceded them. In particular] there are the Poor Law Amend-
ment Act,
1834,
the Municipal Corporations Act,
1835,
and the Public
Health Act,
1848.
56
It
did not wholly remove
it.
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